Sydney Olympic Football Club announced on social media the celebration of it's 65th anniversary.
The History
Sydney Olympic Football Club, an Australian semi-professional soccer club, based in Belmore, Sydney, New South Wales, that plays in the National Premier Leagues NSW was founded as Pan-Hellenic Soccer Club in 1957 by Greek immigrants. In 1977, the Club changed its name to Sydney Olympic and became a founding member of the Phillips Soccer League, later named the National Soccer League (NSL), the inaugural national football league of Australia, remaining a member of the competition until its demise in 2004.
Sydney Olympic have won many trophies in Australian football, including two NSL Championships, two NSL Cups, the NSL Minor Premiership and three NSW Premier League Championships. The club has also won the Johnny Warren Cup, the Brett Emerton Cup, the National Youth League Championship, the National Youth League Minor Premiership and the NSW Premier League Club Championship.
Sydney Olympic has traditionally been one of the most well supported football teams in Australia, setting numerous domestic crowd attendances. A crowd of 18,985 attended Sydney Olympic's victory over Northern Spirit in 1998 at North Sydney Oval, a record crowd attendance between two clubs during the regular season of the NSL, defeating the previous record of 18,367 set when Newcastle KB United played Sydney Olympic in 1979 at Marathon Stadium. The greatest crowd attendance for a Grand Final was recorded during the 2001/02 season when 42,735 people were present at Subiaco Oval to see Sydney Olympic defeat Perth Glory.
1957: Pan-Hellenic – The Beginnings
Established in Sydney by Greek immigrants in 1957, Sydney Olympic Football Club has been and continues to be a major pillar and a leading contributor to football in Australia as well as a nursery to many of its finest talents.
In the late 1940s and 50s there were several small Greek teams for the purposes of socialising and giving a sense of home for the newly arrived migrants. These teams included; Taxiarchis, Atlas, Astro, Pansamiakos as well as several others. Many people wondered about uniting all of these smaller teams to establish 1 strong Greek team in order to participate in the NSW Soccer Federation. The founding date of the Club is set as 28 November 1957, as this was the first meeting of Club Founder Christos Giannakoulias with several other influential protagonists at his home. It was decided there, that the newly formed team would be known as Pan-Hellenic, as it represented the shared journeys of Greeks from all over the world who migrated to Sydney and not just from Greece and Cyprus, but also from various other places like; Egypt, Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Anatolia and Asia Minor
The club was established as Pan-Hellenic Soccer Club and its initial strip was blue and white vertical stripes.
